Mexico Fourth Country In Hemisphere Affected By Cholera Strain Introduced To Haiti In 2010

Oct 23, 2013

Since the beginning of September, Mexican health authorities have recorded 171 cholera cases “in Mexico City and states to the north and east,” NPR’s “Shots” blog and “Morning Edition” report. “Since it was introduced into Haiti — very likely by United Nations peacekeeping troops from Nepal who were billeted at a camp with poor sanitary facilities — cholera has sickened 715,000 people in Haiti and the Dominican Republic (which share the island of Hispaniola) and Cuba,” and now Mexico, the news service notes. “Jon Andrus, deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization, says it was all but inevitable that cholera would spread beyond the Caribbean,” the blog writes. “It was always a major concern that it would be exported to other countries, as has recently happened in Mexico,” Andrus said, according to the blog. NPR discusses the implications of the latest cholera outbreak and the disease’s potential to spread to other countries (Knox, 10/23).